Obsessed

Good morning readers. Or reader. Or just myself. I wanted to talk about obsession. It’s a word I use a lot when describing myself. “I’m obsessed with counting calories. I’m obsessed with what my body looks like.” My mother and boyfriend use it sometimes but more when they’re at the end of their patience and I won’t shut up about food or dieting or exercise.

I haven’t always been like this. It sort of crept up on me til one day I realized I couldn’t eat anything out of the “safe zone” without feeling immense guilt which on occasion lead to intense breakdowns with full blown crying at screaming. Not a good look. And not a healthy regular occurance for my now fiance to deal with. I feel very lucky to call him that considering all the rollercoaster of emotions he has had to deal with over the past 5 years.

Looking back I can’t actually pinpoint the moment when my hobby turned into an obsession. I went to college as such a happy young woman who was nervous about going away to school without any of my friends. Didn’t take long for me to make a few and I can only think of a handful of memories that weren’t full of laughter and poor (stupidly fun) decisions. Which I am sure will come up later in this blog if I manage to remember through all the other things on my mind I want to write down.

Like I said I can’t remember what happened to me. In this moment I think it might have been when I came back from school for some break and was told I looked amazing. Like I had lost some weight. That compliment alone is such an amazing thing to hear but life altering in the worst way at the same time. I started craving that recognition of my family and friends. I liked being known as the girl in my friend group who was athletic and fit. I had always been on the muscular size and decent at sports without trying, I just had quite a bit of fat covering it all up. Once I started to shed some weight and get noticed, without me knowing it things started to take a really dark turn. It was a subtle shift and wouldn’t make itself known until my last quarter in my senior year of college. Until then I would happily play the role of “curvy” athletic girl who went to the gym daily but still knew how to eat carbs, alcohol and every once in awhile order pizza late at night with her roommate without worrying about how many calories I was eating and not burning.

I wish I could go back to my freshman year self and tell her you are beautiful just the way you are. You are going to meet someone in 2 years who is going to love you for you. Your friends could care less if you weighed 90 pounds or 160 pounds. But 20/20 hindsight right? I can’t go back and the damage has already been done. The hope I have is that this thing, this obsession with my body image is going to get better. This blog is the last attempt I have at trying to help myself. I want to be able to look back on these last few years in my life knowing that I was the one who fixed it. That sounds pretty unlikely and I will probably eventually get outside help. But for now, this is what i’ve got.

I will leave you (whomever might be reading this) with this: You aren’t alone in obsessing about your body or what you look like. It may feel that way because people are afraid to tell their stories. To share what they’re going through. If one person can relate to this then that’s better than what I was expecting.

Until tomorrow.